A NATION CHALLENGED: A HIDE-OUT; In Caucasus Gorge, a Haven for Muslim Militants

Dozens of Afghan and Arab fighters are hiding in this 40-mile-long slash of rock and forest in the Caucasus Mountains, according to Georgian officials. They say at least some of the new arrivals are plotting terrorist strikes in Russia or seeking to reach Europe and the United States, possibly to mount attacks.

Officials from both Russia and the United States have indicated they would like to bring the fight against global terrorism here to the snow-encrusted escarpments northeast of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

But the government of President Eduard Shevardnadze is reluctant to act while an estimated 8,000 Chechen refugees and about 1,500 Chechen rebels are also taking shelter in the area, which has long served as a no man's land of crime, drug trafficking and hostage taking on the border between Georgia and Russia.

The Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, referred this month to the Pankisi Gorge as ''a mini-Afghanistan on Russia's doorstep,'' a pronouncement in line with Russia's history of pressing Georgia to crush the Chechen rebels on its territory, or at least drive them back into Chechnya.

[In Moscow, Russia's foreign minister said an American proposal to deploy about 200 military specialists to train and equip Georgian armed forces to fight terrorism ''could further aggravate the situation in the region, which is difficult as it is.'' Page A12.]

Georgia, among the weakest of the post-Soviet states, would like the United States to provide military hardware -- tanks, artillery, munitions and armored vehicles -- before Georgian troops are sent against the hardened fighters of the gorge.

But neither Washington nor Moscow seems willing to provide the kind of heavy weapons that Georgian officials are seeking, in part because Georgia remains afflicted by deep ethnic conflicts in two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There is no guarantee, American and Russian officials say, that such weapons would not be employed to inflame those conflicts.

And so far, Mr. Shevardnadze and senior officials in his government insist that neither Russian nor American troops will be allowed to intervene in combat operations here, though all agree that action against Islamic militants hiding here is urgently needed.

The terrorist threat is growing, according to Georgia's top security officer, Valery Khaburdzania. In an interview, he said his agents had arrested dozens of Afghans, Saudis and Jordanians, many without identity documents, who entered Georgia on the run from Afghanistan or Central Asia, trying to reach safety in this rocky enclave.

Some were planning terrorist acts against Russia, he said. Others were trying to make their way to Europe and, perhaps, the United States. Both Georgian and American officials said they believed dozens of Afghan and Arab militants were still on the loose.

''Afghans are going there for a breather and, unfortunately, the region has become a hide-out'' and a ''hotbed of tension for us,'' Mr. Khaburdzania said. ''The drug business is flourishing. We can't control everything that is going on there, and unless we tackle the Pankisi problem, this issue will create a threat to Georgia's integrity and the security of the region.''

The United States is considering sending advisers to other countries where Al Qaeda operatives are believed to be hiding or regrouping.

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Middle East, told a House panel on Wednesday that he expects to recommend that the American military help train Yemeni forces to pursue Al Qaeda and other terrorists.

At least two Al Qaeda suspects wanted by the United States are believed to be hiding in Yemen. In October 2000, terrorists attacked a the destroyer Cole, a United States Navy ship, in the port of Aden, killing 17 sailors.

In Georgia, the state security service, recently placed under Mr. Khaburdzania's management, has circulated photos and fingerprints of every Afghan and Arab transient it has arrested, hoping that American and European intelligence services can determine if Al Qaeda members are among them.

Top Russian officials have even suggested -- while admitting they have no proof -- that Osama bin Laden could find refuge in Pankisi Gorge. A Chechen rebel commander, Ruslan Gelayev, has set up training camps for fighters who use the gorge as a rear area for rest, training and arms supply, Russian officials said. Western officials say some criminals operate from the gorge, in league with corrupt Georgian politicians.

Russian officials bristled last year when Mr. Shevardnadze complimented Mr. Gelayev as an ''educated man,'' and Western diplomats say there is evidence that Mr. Shevardnadze employed Mr. Gelayev's forces last year in an ill-considered military operation in Abkhazia. Western officials are concerned that a better armed Georgian military might undertake a similar venture.

In February, Russian and Georgian officials discussed a proposal to take a census of the thousands of Chechen refugees here and offer them an opportunity to return home. But so far there are no takers, given the intense fear of Russians and how they treat Chechen civilians. ''Not until the last Russian boot has left Chechen soil will we go home,'' said Omar Shakai, 40, who fled Chechnya with his family two years ago.

Roza Girikhanova, a refugee who saw her mother and sister die during the bombing of the Chechen capital in early 2000, said, ''I would rather carry out an act of self-immolation than be forced to go back to Grozny.''

Georgian veterans of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980's have taken to the streets in Akhmeta, a nearby town, to chide Mr. Shevardnadze's government for its failure to eradicate the ''viper's nest'' in Pankisi.

But there is an overarching caution among many Georgians and Western officials about the danger of undertaking a major military campaign in the gorge; they fear it would cause the war in neighboring Chechnya to spill across the border.

''If the people start shooting here, it will be worse than Abkhazia,'' said Zaza Ketiladze, a young Georgian officer standing guard outside Duisi, the largest village in the gorge.

Thousands died and hundreds of thousands of Georgians were displaced when Abkhazia, a mountainous region in the wast, declared its independence from Georgia during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Such internal conflicts continue to fester under a weak and corrupt central government beset by political pressure from 300,000 refugees displaced within Georgia.

The sudden focus on the Pankisi Gorge is thus a nightmare for Tbilisi.

''These people are highlanders and all of them have weapons, and if we start a sudden military action, it could result in some kind of ethnic clashes,'' Mr. Khaburdzania said.

For now, Georgian officials say, they will not attack the gorge while thousands of Chechen refugees shelter here. They will not allow Russian forces to enter to do the job for them, and they will not force refugees to leave against their will.

Georgia has sought to remain neutral in Russia's war in Chechnya, and Mr. Shevardnadze refuses to brand the Chechen rebellion as a terrorist movement, much to Moscow's displeasure. Many Georgians regard the Chechen quest for independence as much like their own separation from Moscow's rule.

The Pankisi Gorge is a haven for the Muslim Chechens in part because it houses Georgia's tiny population of Kistinians, who share the Chechens' language and faith. Georgia is predominately Christian.

The number of Islamic militants sheltered among the 1,500 Chechen fighters under Mr. Gelayev's command is small, by all accounts. But these Afghan and Arab fighters see the Chechen conflict as an extension of their jihad to create radical Islamic states across Central Asia.

It is all but impossible to separate terrorists from the indigenous independence movement. The leadership of the Chechen rebellion is split between President Aslan Maskhadov, who is in hiding, and powerful field commanders like Shamil Basayev and a Jordanian known as Khattab.

American policy here continues to differentiate between the terrorist forces that have grafted themselves onto the Chechen rebellion and the larger Chechen struggle for independence from Moscow.

But the senior American diplomat in Tbilisi, Philip Remler, surprised even Georgian officials when he suggested this month that members of Al Qaeda were among the Afghan and Arab mujahedeen fighters making their way to Pankisi.

''As for Al Qaeda, according to our information, several tens of mujahedin fled from Afghanistan and hide now in the Caucasus,'' he said in a local newspaper interview.